Volunteering and Virtue Ethics

Abstract

Volunteering can be understood as a morally worthy action that we perform because we want to. In this chapter, I argue that this feature of volunteering poses problems for modern moral theories centered on moral duty, such as utilitarianism and Kantian approaches. According to these theories, there are only three ways to explain what volunteering is: (a) the fulfillment of a basic moral obligation; (b) the supererogatory (heroic actions beyond duty); and (c) the morally permissible, usually related to a personal search for happiness. As I argue, none of these accounts make sense as accounts of volunteering. I then try to show how a virtue ethics approach is particularly helpful to understand what volunteering is and why it is important. Moral actions are not done from duty but upon a “call from the world,” which gives a special meaning to our own lives.

1. Introduction

The idea behind volunteering seems to be acting in a morally good way-like doing civic services or fighting climate change-but because you want to and not because you must. While you will be praised for doing it, no one will blame you if you do not. As I argue in this paper, this feature of volunteering poses problems for modern moral theories, such as utilitarian and Kantian approaches, centered on the notion of duty. I also attempt to show how virtue ethics (VE) is better placed to account for volunteering.

For a duty-centered moral theory, there are three possible ways to explain volunteering. The first is the fulfillment of a basic moral obligation. However, this will not do because volunteering is understood as something we do because we want to, not because we must, and thus, we cannot be blamed for not doing it. Second, volunteering can be thought of as a supererogatory act, which means heroic actions that go beyond duty. I argue that this will not do either because volunteering often entails simple actions that do not involve self-sacrifice. Third, volunteering is understood as something we do because it gives meaning to our lives in a more personal sense. The problem with this interpretation is that it does not fit the distinction between morality and happiness, which is commonplace in modernity. Volunteering relates to both, in the sense of being something morally worth doing for “private” reasons, stemming from personal commitments that shape our lives-what Bernard Williams, as discussed later, calls a personal project. That is why a eudemonistic virtue ethics approach, which challenges the modern distinction between morality and happiness, is better suited to explain what volunteering is. However, there are other reasons as well, which are discussed later in the document.

2. Morally obligatory, morally permissible, and supererogatory actions

A good starting point for our discussion is the notion of the supererogatory. An act is supererogatory when it is beyond duty, which means you are not required to do so, but it would be morally praiseworthy if you did. Judith Thomson captures this point well by distinguishing between the Good and the Minimally Decent Samaritan. She gives an illustrative example: the real case of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered in New York in 1964 while 38 people watched or listened and did nothing at all to help. Giving direct assistance to the victim, or fighting the murderer, would involve a risk of death for oneself, so it would be odd to say that the passersby were morally obligated to do so. However, there was no great risk in calling the police, for instance. Therefore, like in the biblical narrative, those people did not meet the basic moral standard. While fighting the murderer would be a heroic act only a Good Samaritan would do, calling for help is what we expect from the Minimally Decent Samaritan [1].

How do these concepts relate to volunteering? At first, the answer is not clear, for neither the Good nor the Minimally Decent Samaritan seems to capture the idea properly. On the one hand, as already stated, volunteering does not seem to be something we are morally required to do. On the other hand, it does not necessarily involve performing heroic actions either. Of course, sometimes, it can be so, like enlisting in the Ukrainian army to fight the Russian invasion. However, it does not always need to be heroic-raking leaves for an elderly neighbor or teaching English to immigrants are activities of relatively low cost to oneself.

The confusion stems from the fact that there are two ways for an action to be not “morally required” in modern approaches. One is supererogatory and the other is the class of morally permissible actions (i.e., neutral, neither required nor forbidden, and usually connected with the private search for happiness). This does not capture what volunteering is, for to treat these initiatives as morally permissible would reduce them to a kind of hobby, which does not do justice to the moral dimension we usually attach to them.

To get a better understanding of these matters, we need a little help from philosophical theory. In the following sections, I discuss how a virtue ethics approach is more suitable than the alternatives to appreciate what volunteering is and why it is important.

3. Volunteering and modern moral theories

The most influential modern moral approaches, even to this day, are Kantian and utilitarian theories. Originating in the Enlightenment era, for both, the dimension of moral obligation is central, but with very different consequences for the categories of what is obligatory, beyond duty, or morally permissible.

In the most basic formulation of utilitarianism, which is act utilitarianism, we are morally obligated to maximize the good from an impartial point of view. This means that the idea of something morally good, but which is not a duty, does not make sense. Peter Singer, for instance, believes we are morally obligated to help poor people if this can be done without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance [2]. Helping the poor, of course, is something we would usually count as volunteering, but not in the utilitarian sense of fulfilling a basic moral obligation. As observed before, volunteering seems to be something we do because we want to and not because we must. Therefore, utilitarianism seems to treat heroic acts as minimally decent behaviors. There are some strategies that utilitarians can use to mitigate this problem, such as the so-called indirect utilitarianism [3]. However, these are not good answers, and I hope a virtue ethics approach will make this clear.

Kant seems to deal better with this kind of issue, thanks to his distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. The ground for both is the categorical imperative, namely commands stemming from a universal pure practical reason. However, it is only in perfect duties (which are usually negative) that the categorical imperative prescribes specific actions. Imperfect duties, on the other hand, prescribe ends or maxims, and we have latitude or space (latitudo) to choose which actions to perform to fulfill them. As Kant himself stresses, this does not mean that we can allow exceptions to these obligations but only that more specific maxims (for instance, friendship as a specification of universal love) are necessary to prescribe particular acts, and the comparative weight of those maxims may depend on circumstantial factors [4].

For Kant, there are two basic imperfect duties: to develop one’s talents and to contribute to the happiness of others. The latter, of course, fits our common idea of volunteering, as something we do for the sake of people in an altruistic manner or, in a broad sense, to make the world a better place. As stated previously, we usually do not see volunteering as a basic obligation, something we must do, or something we should be reprehended for not doing. But the Kantian notion of imperfect duties could perhaps accommodate this idea. Since no specific actions are prescribed, we can see it as a duty and at the same time as something we want to do (of course, there is a complication here since, for Kant, there is no real opposition between our duties and what we really want to do; I discuss this point later in the document).

Therefore, Kant’s notion of imperfect duties seems to capture the way we usually understand volunteering. The specific actions we perform-for instance, helping the poor or fighting climate change-are not mandatory, but they still have a moral dimension in the sense of being instances of a generic end-helping others-which is a moral duty. However, this first impression is misleading. Indeed, we cannot derive specific actions directly from our duties as ends, for this relation is intermediated by circumstantial factors. Nevertheless, these actions are still done from duty in the sense of accomplishing an end, which is a duty for us to adopt. As Katja Maria Vogt puts it:

Kant cannot make sense of the key intuition of the supererogationist: that there are actions that are not required but are good or virtuous. No action can be called good if it is not done from duty, and one can only act from duty when one acts in compliance with a duty. With respect to the duties to others, this means that whatever action of beneficence an agent will choose to perform, her action will be an act of duty. No matter how enormous her effort will be and no matter how purely she will be motivated, her action will not go beyond duty [5].

In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant states that to fulfill imperfect duties is merit (meritum), but to transgress them is not guilt (demeritum) but rather lack of moral worth unless the agent makes it his principle not to submit to these duties [4]. This means while it would not be blameworthy for us failing to perform some action, it would be blameworthy not to adopt the end of contributing to the happiness of others, for this would be a vice. Therefore, consistently failing to perform actions in a way that expresses a lack of commitment to the maxim of helping others would be blameworthy. Besides, some circumstances can turn an act of beneficence so demanding-for instance, helping a drowning child-that not performing it would express a lack of commitment to the maxim, and, therefore, the act would be in itself blameworthy. Therefore, there is a sense in which even actions fulfilling imperfect duties are mandatory. This means those acts would still count as fulfilling basic obligations, something that could be required as a minimally decent behavior.

A further problem with this account is establishing what “circumstances” are. For instance, if we live in a highly unequal world, would this be a circumstantial factor that gives us reasons to fight poverty? Kant never addressed this point explicitly, but it is possible to infer that he would have tackled it, as many philosophers do, by using the notion of special relationships. As Stuart Mill puts it in Utilitarianism, if you can produce happiness on a large scale, as a public benefactor, it would be a moral duty to do so; but for people who are not in this kind of position, only “private utility” is owned, concerning the happiness of those few people who are close enough to benefit from our influence [6]. This means that if I work in the United Nations World Food Program, for instance, then of course I have a duty to fight poverty and famine in the world. My position establishes a specific connection with people who needs this kind of assistance-like the obligations doctors, lawyers, and other professionals have toward their clients. However, most people do not have connections that entail a responsibility to address large world problems.

This is likely also the way Kant would derive specific actions from imperfect duties. What counts as a “circumstantial factor” may be simply a matter of time and space proximity-for instance, if we see a child drowning nearby, we clearly have a duty to help the child, which we do not have toward distant people starving in another continent. However, spatial context is not enough to cover the complexity of circumstances. While considering how to fulfill the end of helping others, it is licit to take into account the special connections we have, for instance, with our friends, children, clients, and so on [7].

I think it has become clear now how both approaches, utilitarian and Kantian, differ from the way volunteering is usually understood. On the one hand, we do not think we have a consequentialist duty to make the world better, stemming from an impersonal point of view and independently of our personal life projects, which can be required as a minimally decent behavior. On the other hand, we do see volunteering as something we do for “the world” in a large sense, benefiting people we do not have obligations stemming from special relationships. The whole point of volunteering seems to be precisely that we do not need to have a job in the UN to fight climate change or the world’s hunger.

In both cases, the problem is related to the point made earlier that we see volunteering as something morally worthy, but we do it because we want to, not because we must. In the utilitarian approach, making the world better does not look like volunteering because it is considered a basic moral obligation. In the Kantian approach, moral obligations do look more the way we usually understand them-we must perform a minimally decent behavior but not heroic ones-but precisely because of this, these obligations do not cover actions often associated with volunteering, which aim to make the world better and help people we do not have any special relationships with. Besides, as argued below, the sense of duty of Kantian ethics-which applies even to actions fulfilling imperfect duties, as we just saw-does not fit the way freedom (doing something “because I want to”) is understood in the context of volunteering.

In the next section, I attempt to show how a virtue ethics approach can deal better with such issues.

4. Volunteering and virtue ethics

Virtue ethics is a relatively recent trend in moral philosophy. It started officially in 1958 with the seminal paper of Elisabeth Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Anscombe criticized the modern tendency to conceive morality in juridical terms, which, for her, was a legacy of Christianity. If we do not believe anymore in a divine legislator, it makes no sense to hold a law conception of ethics, centered in terms such as ought, must, duty, and obligation. She urged us to drop this legalistic terminology and adopt, instead, an aretaic ethics approach inspired by Aristotle, based on the virtues [8].

During the 60s and the 70s, virtue ethics prospered with authors such as Peter Geach, G.H. von Wright, and Philippa Foot. In the 80s, it was popularized by Alasdair MacIntyre and Bernard Williams, but it became an officially recognized approach only in the 90s, able to rival mainstream theories, such as Kantian and utilitarian ones, as seen in the works of Michael Slote, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Christine Swanton.

The main point of virtue ethics seems to be to give the concept of virtue a central role in ethics [9], but this is quite vague. Many versions of virtue ethics-for instance, the eudemonistic ones-do not see virtue as a value per se but as something important because of its contribution to something else, such as the good life, social welfare, or human flourishing. The point, however, seems to be that these approaches give virtue a crucial role, even if it is not a fundamental one. In most eudemonistic conceptions, like Aristotle’s, virtue is constitutive of the good life, and we cannot establish what the right action is without referring to the virtuous person [10]. This is quite different from what we see in modern moral theories, such as Kantian and utilitarian ones, in which morality has become an autonomous sphere independent from the good life, and the rightness of actions can be established without any reference to aretaic concepts.

This divergence helps explain many of the contemporary virtue ethics authors’ criticism of modern moral theories, such as motivational schizophrenia [11], the devaluation of the agent [12], or the exaggerated emphasis on justice, to the detriment of other virtues [13]. Of course, virtue ethics is also the target of many criticisms. For instance, it is criticized for its inability to offer practical guidance [14]. To say that we should think about “what the virtuous person would do in these circumstances” sounds vague and unhelpful. The standard answer from virtue ethicists is to point out the complexity of moral issues, which cannot be easily integrated into formal and legalistic conceptions of rationality. Any attempt to provide an algorithm that can establish the right thing to do in any situation will simplify moral issues, and in this sense, being vague about decision procedures may be an asset, not a hindrance, for a moral theory [15].

As a result, virtue ethics tend to be particularistic-the right thing to do depends highly on circumstantial factors. As we have seen, it may be difficult for a moral theory to explain what circumstances are, but I attempt to show that VE is better equipped than Kantian and utilitarian approaches to deal with this issue.

One way to understand the place of rules in virtue ethics is through the analogy with the crafts (technai), common in the ancient world. As Julia Annas puts it, for the ancients, morality has an intellectual structure similar to the crafts (i.e., knowledge acquired from habituation, through the grasp of general principles in conjunction with what we learn from experience) [16]. Every craft has rules, but these are more relevant to beginners than to experts [17]. A mature virtuous person acknowledges the relevance of codes but goes beyond them when making particular judgments, which are like an intelligent sensitivity or perception. Therefore, in a virtue ethics approach, there is room for prescriptions that we must follow, but they occupy a secondary place. Rules provide some general guidance, not a decision procedure. A moral agent is always sensitive to the complexities of each case, which can make exceptions for duties that apply generally. This point is relevant to our present discussion, for it shows how a virtue ethics approach can accommodate the concept of duty, acknowledging that there are things we “must” do. However, those obligations make sense inside a higher structure where the good life and the virtues are the main issues.

After this short discussion on virtue ethics, we can deliberate on how it relates to our previous discussion about volunteering. In this paper, I focus on eudemonistic versions of VE, especially those inspired by Aristotle, which are the main trend of virtue ethics [18]. I argue that eudemonistic approaches are best suited to explain the idea of a morally worthy action that we do not because we must but because we want to.

One of the criticisms of modern moral theories by virtue ethicists is the way they devaluate the agent. This criticism can take many forms, but the one which interests us comes from Bernard Williams, who argues that utilitarianism and Kantian approaches alienate people from their personal projects. As Railton puts it, alienation can be characterized as a kind of estrangement, distancing, or separateness (not necessarily consciously noticed), resulting in some sort of loss [19]. Modern moral approaches seem to lean excessively on an abstract and impersonal point of view, too disconnected from our actual ethical commitments. Bernard Williams translates this point into the notion of a “project” that is personal in an important sense, as something I am committed to and that gives my life a specific shape [20]. Utilitarian calculations, to give Williams’ preferred example, are supposed to generate moral obligations, which bind us independently of our projects, and this has an alienating effect:

It is absurd to demand of such a man, when the sums come in from the utility network, which the projects of others have in part determined, that he should just step aside from his own project and decision and acknowledge the decision that utilitarian calculation requires. It is to alienate him in a real sense from his actions and the source of his actions in his own convictions. (…) this is to neglect the extent to which his actions and his decisions have to be seen as the actions and decisions, which flow from the projects and attitudes with which he is most closely identified. It is thus, in the most literal sense, an attack on his integrity [21].

Although Williams focuses on utilitarianism when discussing these issues, he also applies it to Kantian approaches: “the Kantian emphasis on moral impartiality exaggerates it in quite another, by providing ultimately too slim a sense in which any projects are mine at all.” [22].

This is the best way to make sense of volunteering as a morally worthy action that we do “because we want to:” carrying out civic services, fighting climate change, teaching English to immigrants, and so forth are activities we incorporate into our lives as a personal project, something that adds meaning to our existence because it is connected to values we are personally committed to. As Bernard Williams puts it, “a man may have, for a lot of his life or even just for some part of it, a ground project or set of projects, which are closely related to his existence and which to a significant degree give a meaning to his life.” [22].

As noted previously, virtue ethics can accommodate the notion of duty, but this is done differently from utilitarian and Kantian approaches, where our moral obligations stem from an impersonal point of view, which is independent of our personal projects. Someone could, in principle, have as a project to become a perfect utilitarian or Kantian moral agent-if this gave some special meaning to his/her own life, for instance. Perhaps, it rings a little odd as a life project, but it would be possible. However, this would be a personal sense of “wanting” quite different from the sense of duty those ethical theories propose. As Bernard Williams puts it, even if someone’s project were strongly altruistic or moral that would not make them immune to conflict with impartial morality [23].

Now is a good moment to talk about the Kantian conception of freedom. Kantians certainly disagree with the understanding I am giving to “wanting” in volunteering. According to the German philosopher, only when one follows the moral law (i.e., practical pure reason), you are truly free [24]. Therefore, there is no real opposition between fulfilling your duty and doing something because you want to-granted it is a moral duty and you do it for the right reasons, which means not from empirical dispositions (Neigung) but from the incentive of respecting the moral law [25]. We did not really choose to have the inclinations we have, so Kant believed, when we act out of them, we are following a law that nature set for us and not a law we set for ourselves as rational agents-we are not autonomous, but heteronomous, and therefore, we are not doing “what we really want” in a strong sense.

What Bernard Williams calls a project is something connected with our empirical self [26]. Personal commitments are based on a set of beliefs and dispositions developed through our life history-our biography-an immersed way of seeing and evaluating things that reflect not an impersonal point of view but our own corner of the world. This is the way our self-understanding operates in our daily lives, and that is why trying to identify ourselves with the Kantian rational agent and his/her transcendent freedom has an alienating effect.

Kant, however, did not think we are truly free only when we fulfill some moral duty. He acknowledged that the pursuit of happiness-when we act from inclinations and reason works instrumentally-is an important part of our lives [27]. These actions are also freely chosen, granted they are considered permissible from the moral point of view [28]. The idea that our personal projects are legitimate only as a concession from an impersonal standpoint is also criticized by Bernard Williams-he calls it the “one thought too many” problem [29]. However, what interests us the most is how this picture does not fit the way volunteering is usually understood. Not only do we perform these actions because we want to-in the sense of belonging to our personal life projects in a non-alienating way-but we also see it as something with moral worth. So, volunteering does not adjust well to the way modern moral theories distinguish between morality and happiness. It seems to relate to both spheres at the same time, like a moral deed we do because this makes us happy. This is one of the main reasons that eudemonistic approaches are more appropriate to account for volunteering.

Bernard Williams does not explicitly defend a eudemonistic project, so we are going a step further. However, his discussion about personal commitments and alienation points in that direction, as it becomes clear, for instance, when he warns us against the reductionist view of projects as a mere pursuit of happiness [30]. This problem arises precisely because of the way happiness is understood, in modernity, as something inherently subjective and independent from moral considerations. Morality, in modern thought, just sets the boundaries of how we can legitimately try to be happy [31]. Things are different in eudemonistic conceptions, where the good life is an ethical ideal. Ancient philosophers believed that reflection about “how should I live” was the entry point to the moral point of view [32]. If we think seriously about what happiness is, we should give a higher weight to the role of virtue in our lives. This paper does not discuss the connection between eudaimonia and virtue in ancient ethics in detail, but here are some general considerations: virtue is related to practical reason, so, the point is that we should live more rationally. Now, living rationally means two things: first, we should flourish as human beings, which means exercising and developing our rational capacities in an integrated way with other features of the human condition, such as emotions. Second, the ancients were very aware that our interaction with the world is a central aspect of our existence, so living rationally means acting and reacting to what happens to us-what they called týkhe-in a rational way [33].

This last point is particularly interesting to volunteering, because these activities are usually understood as striving to “make the world better.” It is like we received a call from a very generic level, not from a distinct sphere of human activities. Of course, our contributions can be in some specific domain, such as climate change or medical care, but it is like those are instantiations of a higher problem.

The idea of a “call of the world” fits well with the particularism of the ancient theories mentioned earlier. Duty ethics, such as utilitarianism and Kant-inspired approaches, see circumstances as opportunities for the fulfillment of previously established obligations (of course, the categorical imperative and the universal command of maximizing well-being are in each case intermediated by more particular obligations, so circumstances also help to identify which specific duties apply). The role of circumstances is stronger in particularistic approaches, for the right thing to do is somehow established throughout our interaction with the world. To live a good life, we need to have a “rational relationship” with reality, and this includes learning to make the right reading of a situation, listening, and acknowledging what is required of us. Of course, the same can be said of duty ethics—we must correctly appreciate the situation and acknowledge what is required. However, in eudemonic conceptions, this is done differently, with important implications for volunteering.

Ancient ethics is usually committed to substantive moral realism, which means there are objective values, like knowledge or friendship, we should incorporate into our practices to have good lives. The term “realism” does not mean that values are out there in a literal sense, but the assumption that they are somehow “objective” can be seen as an external imposition-why should I accept those values as true and those ways of living as somehow better than others? This is one of the reasons why the eudemonistic approach lost its force in modern times and was replaced by moral theories centered on duty [34]. However, impersonal obligations also may look like external impositions, in the sense of being disconnected from the substantive values we are committed to, which shape our lives. This is partially why we find in contemporary thought those reactions inspired by ancient conceptions, like virtue ethics.

Of course, we cannot-nor would it be desirable-simply go back to the ancient view. However, there are still elements of eudemonistic approaches we can adapt and incorporate into our modern world. One of them is the attractive dimension of substantive values, in contrast with the coercive tone of formal duties [35]. Virtue ethics can also be exigent in the sense of asking us to reflect on our values to become “better persons.” However, turning our values more objective through reflection is a bottom-up process that is non-alienating. We do not really abandon our personal commitments by making them better. That is why eudemonistic conceptions can conciliate morality and happiness in a way that does not make sense in modern moral theories. The distinction between impersonal and personal, or between objectivity and subjectivity, which is at the core of these theories, is challenged. We cannot think anymore of morality as something impersonal and objective and of happiness as something purely personal and subjective. In a moral substantive realism, as the ancient’s, objective values work as a horizon that we approach gradually by making our commitments more rational through reflection. As we saw, this process includes working out the way we relate to the world and listening better to it. Therefore, even if the good life or eudaimonia is more objective than modern happiness is usually understood, it keeps a subjective component within it [36]. In eudemonistic virtue ethics, morality is always personal in the sense of contributing to the meaning of our existence. The good life would not be good if it was not my life, lived from the inside. Therefore, objectivity orientates the development of subjectivity in a way it does not cease being subjective. Aristotle perfectly illustrates this point when he says that the good is always apparent, that is, it is always good in the sense of looking this way at someone. It does not preclude some goods from being more objective than others-Aristotle was no relativist-but even those are still apparent, in the sense of being “someone’s good.” [37].

This point helps to explain why eudemonistic conceptions are not a form of moral egoism, which is a common criticism toward them. The idea that the ethical life is good for the agent sounds odd to our modern ears, as we are used to seeing morality and individual happiness as different things. Julia Annas tackles this problem by saying that ancient ethics is self-centered only in a formal sense, meaning the content of the agent’s interests may be directed to others [38]. To say the agent’s interests are his/her own does not mean he/she is only interested in his/her own good. This account fits well with Williams’ concept of a personal project: my commitments give shape to my life, but these commitments can, and often do, involve the good of other people [23]. Helping war refugees can give a special meaning to my own existence, but this only works if my concern for them is sincere. As I said, eudemonistic conceptions urge us to understand the good life as an ethical one, but this occurs through a bottom-up process, which elevates, so to speak, my personal interests to a moral level. This is the opposite of moral egoism, which is technically a possible position, often associated, for instance, with Hobbes. According to this view, each person should (i.e., from a moral point of view) follow his/her own interests in all situations [39]. Of course, this looks strange as a moral theory, but it works technically because the same principle is valid for everyone. In the case of moral egoism, morality is lowered to the individual preferences people happen to have. However, the opposite is true in eudemonistic theories, where our interests are elevated to the moral level.

Now turning ethics into a personal project is precisely what we need to make sense of volunteering as a morally worthy action that we do because we want to. As we saw before, none of the duty ethics’ accounts for volunteering-the fulfillment of basic moral obligations, the supererogatory, and the morally permissible search for happiness-really works as an explanation. The notion of volunteering simply does not fit the way those issues are structured in modernity, the split between happiness and morality, the correlated distinction between the public and private realms, and the way subjectivity and objectivity are worked out, the latter understood formally. Volunteering is something like a public good we do for private reasons. That is why it fits better with the structure of eudemonistic virtue ethics, where there is a tangled continuity between morality and happiness, the public and the private, and where objectivity is understood as a set of substantive values, which functions as a reference to the development of subjectivity. We become better persons through a bottom-up process that reaches the ethical level while keeping itself personal in an important sense. As I argued, this process is based on the attractive dimension of substantive values, which functions as an ideal, different from the coercive and alienating tone of impersonal duties. Instead of the cherished dualisms of modern thought, we have a scalar structure based on degrees. The difference between a simple activity and a heroic act of volunteering-say, raking leaves or fighting in the Ukrainian war-is not the distinction between what is morally required and what is beyond duty but between different ranges in the ethical realm. Therefore, even simple actions are the right move in a meaningful direction.

5. Conclusion

I have argued that for the ancients, the good life depends on rationally interacting with the world, and this-considering particularism as a general trend of these conceptions-means learning how to listen to it. If we combine this perspective with the attractive dimension of substantive values, ethical behavior can be seen as responding to a “call of the world” (again, this does not mean values are out there in a literal sense but that they are worked out through the way we report to reality). This understanding also agrees with how volunteering is usually understood and allows a better appreciation of what circumstances are and their role in moral behavior. Instead of a clear-cut demarcation between what is and what is not relevant for the agent, flowing from a specific reading of the situation he/she is immersed in-based, for instance, on special relationships, like familiar or professional ties-the eudemonistic approach allows us to see circumstances in a scalar and holistic way, ranging from proximity to the distant, but always as a part of a greater situation, which is, ultimately, the whole world. So, it becomes easier to see how the problems of strangers and events not directly related to us are somehow part of the circumstances we are immersed in. This is precisely what we need to explain what volunteering is.

Therefore, virtue ethics helps us not only to understand volunteering but also to appreciate its importance. Several authors believe we are on average in a much better reality than our ancestors [40]. Maybe this is true, but there is certainly a lot to be done. We live in a very unequal world. According to recent UN reports, 828 million people are suffering from food insecurity around the globe. 9.2% of the world’s population lives on less than $1.90 a day. Climate change, discrimination against minorities, animal cruelty, wars, and deadly diseases are a bitter reality. Apart from these global structural problems, there are a lot of simple things we can do to help people in important ways.

The world is calling for us. Let us have a good life!